Anwar al-Awlaki in his own words

The radical cleric Anwar al-Awlaki, reportedly killed in Yemen, left behind a series of blog posts, interviews and sermons in which he urged Muslims to engage in jihad against the United States and lose weight

Anwar al-Awlaki in his own words

The radical cleric Anwar al-Awlaki, reportedly killed in Yemen, left behind a series of blog posts, interviews and sermons in which he urged Muslims to engage in jihad against the United States and lose weight

Anwar al-Awlaki, the American-born, radical cleric who was reportedly killed in Yemen on Friday, left fans of his online video sermons in little doubt as to where he stood on a range of issues he considered important to Muslims – from the sacred duty to engage in jihad against Americans to the holiness of fighting obesity.

Coverage of Awlaki's assassination, which was announced by Yemeni defence officials and hailed by President Barack Obama, has given news networks the chance to roll out footage of the preacher's American-accented calls for jihad, which are credited with inspiring a series of terrorist attacks.

Most of those attacks by Awlaki's YouTube disciples ended in failure – like the 2009 plot to take down a jet over the United States by a bomber with explosives in his underwear and the poorly-made car bomb left near Times Square in 2010 – but the cleric also traded emails with the US Army psychiatrist who killed 13 in a shooting spree at Fort Hood and met two of the hijackers involved in the 9/11 plot before those attacks.

One of his most direct, English-language statements endorsing terror attacks on Americans surfaced in a March, 2010 audio recording, parts of which were broadcast by CNN at the time.

In that audio recording, Awlaki, who was born and educated in the United States, explained:

With the American invasion of Iraq and continued U.S. aggression against Muslims, I could not reconcile between living in the U.S. and being a Muslim, and I eventually came to the conclusion that jihad against America is binding upon myself just as it is binding on every other Muslim....

To the Muslims in America, I have this to say: How can your conscience allow you to live in peaceful coexistence with a nation that is responsible for the tyranny and crimes committed against your own brothers and sisters?

In another video statement, posted on jihadist forums in November, 2010, Awlaki was even more direct about what he said was the imperative for Muslims to kill Americans.

As the Associated Press reported at the time, Awlaki told jihadists in that Arabic-language video: "Don't consult with anybody in killing the Americans, fighting the devil doesn't require consultation or prayers seeking divine guidance. They are the party of the devils."

Jarret Brachman, a former West Point terrorism expert who monitors jihadist Web sites, once called Awlaki "one of the most popular English-language jihadist shaikhs out on the circuit today." Brachman also explained that one part of Awlaki's appeal was that he had "a great sense of humour" and his sermons were often "fun".

Once American officials became aware of the importance of Awlaki's online sermons, they worked hard to have as many of them removed from the web as possible. In November 2010, YouTube responded to a letter from a US congressman who spent perhaps too much time scouring the web, Anthony Weiner, by removing many of Awlaki's most inflammatory sermons.

While his fans continue to upload copies of the sermons, the result is that little of what Awlaki had to say about US foreign policy is now available on the video-sharing site. But, since Awlaki tackled a wide range of other issues over his career, a YouTube search still brings up recordings like this one, in which he detailed his thoughts on "Obesity and overeating in Islam".

Traces of Awlaki's thought can still be found on other media-sharing websites perhaps less susceptible to pressure from US officials. More than an hour of Awlaki preaching about "Dreams in the Quran and Hadith," is still available on HalalTube.

Two interviews from late 2001 show that Awlaki's sermons were far less radical when he lived and worked in the United States.

In the immediate aftermath of the 9/11 attacks, as American journalists sought out moderate Muslims to take the temperature of the community in the United States, Awlaki was interviewed by both PBS and the Washington Post.

When al-Qaida launched its spectacular attacks on the United States, Awlaki was preaching at the Dar al-Hijrah Islamic Center in Falls Church, Virginia. After it was revealed that three of the hijackers had attended services at his mosque as they prepared to strike, Awlaki was questioned by the Federal Bureau of Investigation. The 9/11 Commission report later noted what it called the "remarkable coincidence" that Awlaki had met at least one of the hijackers at two different American mosques, one in San Diego and the other in Virginia, before the attacks.

A 2009 PBS video report on Awlaki's influence on the Fort Hood gunman included archival video of him discussing the 9/11 attacks during a sermon in Virginia just after the event. In that 2001 sermon, Awlaki said that the killing of American civilians in those attacks was not justified, but, he added, neither was the killing of any Afghan civilians.

At about the same time, Travis Fox, a Washingtonpost.com video journalist, produced a report on the meaning of Ramadan, as explained by Awlaki.

After Awlaki's death was reported on Friday, Fox posted more footage of his 2001 interview with the preacher, which shows him driving around Virginia talking about the war in Afghanistan.

In an email to the Guardian, Fox recalled:

I spent the day with Anwar al-Awlaki for a Washington Post video about Ramadan in 2001. It was a few weeks after 9/11 and Ramadan coincided with the beginning of the war in Afghanistan. The Post asked me to produce as feature that could help educate readers about Islam. Al-Awlaki was the head of one of the biggest mosques in the Washington, D.C.-area and the video's central character.

I remember having near total access with him. I arrived at his house before dawn and stayed late into the evening with him as he broke fast at a friends apartment. I met his kids and wondered around his suburban Virginia house trying to get good shots of him. We drove together in his minivan and sat together during prayer time. He was under investigation at that time and would leave the US about six months after the interview, but was open and accommodating with me and my colleague Eleanor Hong.

Most of my questions were not about the war or his personal views, but it came up. Watching the raw footage now, it's interesting how carefully he chose his words. He was worried about civilian casualties in Afghanistan and delicately defended the Taliban, comparing their "mistakes" to abuses by the Northern Alliance, which the US was allied with during the war.

After he left the US in 2002 for Yemen, joining family there, Awlaki took considerably less care to avoid offending American sensibilities.

Following the Fort Hood shootings in 2009, for instance, before his popular English-language blog disappeared from the web, Awlaki wrote a post headlined, "Nidal Hassan Did the Right Thing," in which he argued that the army psychiatrist's shooting spree had been entirely justified:

Nidal Hassan is a hero. He is a man of conscience who could not bear living the contradiction of being a Muslim and serving in an army that is fighting against his own people. This is a contradiction that many Muslims brush aside and just pretend that it doesn't exist.

Last year, Roshonara Choudhry, a 21-year-old student who stabbed a member of the British parliament, Stephen Timms, because of his 2003 vote in favour of the Iraq war, told London police that she had been radicalised in part by listening to Awlaki "explaining stories from the Koran and explaining about jihad" online. According to a transcript of her interrogation, Choudhry explained the impact of watching "more than a hundred hours" of Awlaki's sermons on YouTube:

Choudhry: I wanted to be a martyr.

Officer: Why's that then?

Choudhry: 'Cos, erm, that's the best way to die.

Officer: Who told you that?

Choudhry: It's an Islamic teaching.

Officer: Where did you learn that?

Choudhry: It's … it's in the Koran and I learnt it from listening to lectures as well.

Officer: OK, what lectures are that?

Choudhry: By Anwar al-Awlaki

Officer: al-Awlaki?

Choudhry: Yeah.

Officer: OK, well, how did you find out about him?

Choudhry: On the internet … if you go on YouTube there's a lot of his videos there and if you do a search they just come up … I wasn't searching for him, I just came across him … I used to watch videos that people used to put up about like how they became Muslim.

Q OK, why did you watch those videos?

A 'Cos I thought ... their life stories were interesting ... And as you watch videos that like a whole other list of related videos comes up and I was just looking through those and I came across it.

Q Anwar al-Awlaki?

A Yeah.

Q OK. So who put you, who guided down this path to, to look for, you know, the videos of people and how they become Muslim?

A No one, I just found them really interesting ... I became interested in Anwar al-Awlaki's lectures because he explains things really comprehensively and in an interesting way so I thought I could learn a lot from him and I was also surprised at how little I knew about my religion so that motivated me to learn more...